


without sunrise

by nightdotlight



Series: (not quite gold) [4]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Book/Movie: Prince Caspian, Gen, Return to Narnia, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 10:36:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18519715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightdotlight/pseuds/nightdotlight
Summary: the rulers of old return to narnia, but it is not quite as they remember it.





	without sunrise

It had been nighttime when it happened.

 

A crack of thunder, the smell of fate burning in the air, the ozone of lightning racing through the air to strike a target; and it had all been over in a near instant, the boat breaking apart around the crackle of electricity.

 

Kai remembered only snapshots— the light, the sound, the roaring of waves rushing to engulf the sailors, and a sharp pain to his temple followed by darkness. Absently, he felt the spot. His fingers came back coated in sticky red.

 

_ Oh._

 

It was the sight, his own blood steadily coagulating, dripping in a sedentary manner down his pointer and middle fingers, that truly pulled his mind back into his tangible form from where it had seemingly floated above his body.

 

With the return of full consciousness, so also returned sensation in an overpowering wave. Before having been unawares to his physical condition following the wreck, now Kai’s first instinct was to roll onto his side and heave violently, expelling water from his lungs in coughs and spasms of his lungs.

 

Even as the salty liquid burned his throat and mouth, he became aware of other injuries: not only the throbbing pain of the cut in his head, but the ache of bruises in a patch along the right side of his torso— likely where his prone form had impacted with a rock— as well as the spiking cramps that tore through the shoulder on the same side with each movement; not quite the burning agony of a broken bone or dislocation, but still painful enough to warrant his not using that particular limb for anything strenuous until it healed.

 

The last of the lukewarm water since hacked up and absorbed into the feathery sand he lay on, Kai yet felt no urgency to move from his position, instead preferring to rest, just for a second, and wallow in the unbridled joy welling in his heart. He knew that sky, this sand, even the unique scent of the wind blowing off the Eastern Sea, which even as he lay injured from the shipwreck he yearned to sail across, never having taken the chance before.

 

He was in  _Narnia_.

 

He was  _home_.

 

Nothing could have smothered his joy, even as images began to flicker over his eyes, a veritable lifetime’s worth of missed prophecies echoing into his mind. They all seemed to precede this time, he thought as he watched, save for one— a hill, a cave, a sacred table cracked forever in half.

 

Just the sight of it made him shudder in the knowledge of what had been committed at that spot, but as the images flitted over his retina in quick succession and unending repetition until he dismissed them with a few forceful blinks, he surmised— perhaps not the most apt term, for the universe was practically screaming in his face— that it would be important, that he should travel to the said place.

 

Now, he thought, he just had to get to this “Aslan’s How” that seemed to worry his gift so much.

 

~~

 

When Edmund had initially opened his eyes to find himself back in Narnia, standing upon the very sand of the beaches that formed part of the landscape that he had missed with all of his being, his spirit had seemingly stuttered, caught between disbelief and the fierce desire that this would prove to be real, for he did not think, if it were not, that he would have been able to bear it.

 

Fortunately for all involved, it was real; discomfortingly so, for as the siblings split up to investigate the ruins upon the cliff top, it became overwhelmingly clear that he did not, in any respect or measure, recognise the landscape.

 

What had happened to Narnia, that he could not draw a single similarity from his surroundings now to anywhere he had been back then? For a few seconds, he had questioned if they were in Archenland, but quickly dismissed such an idea upon analysing the trees in the orchard— apple trees, of a variety not native to the southern nation. Still, as he moved among the trees, a sense of uncanny foreboding seemed to engulf the place, for no reason that he could sense.

 

Then Susan found the gold chess piece, and it became abundantly clear that they were, in fact, in Narnia— amid the ruins of Cair Paravel, no less, which had clearly been besieged and destroyed by some unknown invading force.

 

Narnia was no longer as they had known it; from the looks of it, what had been a year for them, in England, had been many more in their former kingdom—  _no, not former, current,_   Edmund corrected himself, for as Aslan had once said,  _once a King or Queen of Narnia, always a King or Queen of Narnia._

 

He could only hope that just as he remembered those words, so also would his beloved land.

 

Now, as he stood before his chest in the treasury, he hesitated, unsure, before moving to strap an extra pair of swords to his back, fastening onto his clothes also the belt and collection of wickedly sharp throwing knives: Kai’s favoured weapon. Even if the other had not returned or even left, had perished long before, he would carry this with him as a tribute to his companion and valued friend.

 

If he noticed Lucy’s glistening eyes as she retrieved the battered leather-bound notebook from her own chest  _(since when had it been there? Kai rarely, if ever, left the thing alone, full as it was of prophecies he had received over the years)_ , he said nothing, instead pulling her into his side in a silent gesture of comfort.

 

Privately, he wondered if it would have been such a bad thing if Kai had perished. He had always loved Narnia and Aslan so, and to see his country lose faith in the one being he had always placed his faith in would surely hurt him so.

 

~~

 

Narnia had changed, changed so much that it was now unrecognisable, and this was what worried Kai Jin the most. When he had been ruler, he had made a point to know all Narnians, down to even the naiads of the River Rush.

 

Now, though, he found that he knew very little of Narnia— something that unnerved him greatly. This was his country, his land, his  _home_ ; and yet, he could not recognise it. Truly, what had happened? For him it had been merely—  _merely, ha—_ half a decade, but without any markers of the age of the landscape for him to use, he remained unable to deduce how much time had passed here.

 

Still, he continued forward unto the How and the Stone Table as fast as he could, for flickers of its image still passed on occasion across his vision. It was there that his questions could be answered, he was sure: there at the Table, where the Deep Magic was strongest in Narnia. He knew the Deep Magic well, had stored and used it in the construction of Cair Paravel all those centuries ago.

 

All those centuries ago, when magic had rippled through the earth like the lifeblood of Narnia guided by the beating heart of the Table and protected by the immense magical presence of Cair Paravel.

 

Now, he could no longer feel it. Even the sunlight that reached his face through the gaps in the thick foliage above seemed different, colder— glacial, sterile white rays that did nothing to warm despite providing a crisp lighting.

 

Back in his own reign and the reign of his predecessors, he could remember the sun as a warm force, pleasant in its feeling against his skin even as all it gazed upon found itself bathed in an amber glow, his surroundings cast into the shades of precious and coveted metals— bronze and gold and silver, even the stones in his vicinity presenting a subtle glitter.

 

A shame, he thought, that Narnia had changed so drastically and in such a way, losing much of its magic. Without the innate power that had once pulsed through the earth, the trees content to feed on its vitality, the plants seemed less vibrant, their stems brittle, their flowers muted, as if hiding. Before, the dryads had taken every opportunity to show themselves, poking their heads out of their trees to converse at any given moment— but now, Kai found himself saddened by their silence, their clear absence from the wooden sprouts they had once so gleefully inhabited.

 

They had locked themselves away, he mourned, and resolved to bring back the magic to this land— for without, he feared that the legacy of the past era would wither and die away, leaving behind naught but uncertainty.

 

~~

 

Despite how alien Narnia had felt initially, Edmund quickly found himself adjusting to his new surroundings after their companion, Trumpkin, had elucidated the truth of what had happened in the years spanning their own departure and the current era.

 

It seemed that they were right— Cair Paravel, the former seat of Narnia’s royalty, had indeed been attacked, by the Telmarines. Ever since, the new settlers had done their best to render what had now come to be known as “Old Narnians” extinct, and the legacy of Aslan nought but dust.

 

The very thought incensed the boiling rage quickly collecting in the pit of his stomach, that these people believed that they had the right to do this, or even _anyone_ had  the right to try to drive a group of people to extinction. Such heinous acts of murder, normalised so as to appear normal or even _just_ to  the settlers, could not go unpunished.

 

Now, as he stood before the Telmarine Prince, introduced to them as Caspian— not just an invader (or even that, for his birth happened many generations following the arrival of the Telmarines), or the heir to the throne of Narnia at the current time, but the very reason that they stood there, on Narnian soil.

 

He had needed help, his life in danger— his own flesh and blood trying to kill him— and, in a fit of desperation, had blown Susan’s horn, for the object of legend had been said to bring help, and indeed had never failed to.

 

Not even now. Caspian had blown the horn, a plea for help reverberating across and through all worlds, and help it had brought to him.

 

Not for the first time, an unwelcome thought slipped past the barrier in Edmund’s subconscious— is Kai here? It brought with it the familiar feeling of grief at the possibility that he was not, that he had never left or indeed left and not returned, that he had perished in the attack or travelled to Aslan’s Country long before.

 

Still, as they began to travel towards the place spoken of in whispers— Aslan’s How— the said feelings began to lighten from what had previously been a dead weight upon his heart with each step. It was what allowed Edmund to hope, briefly and despairingly, that perhaps the boy of his sister’s age had not perished after all, that perhaps when they reached their destination he would be met with the brown hair and small, knowing, curious smile that had always meant that  _all is right with the world,_   and always would for the eternity to come.

 

~~

 

They arrived, and from where he stands under the mountain, Kai Jin felt the prophecy coming true, fate settling like a heavy blanket over his shoulders. The faun he spoke to faltered, worried, but with a forceful blink and a quick apology Kai had swiftly explained, his words a balm to the concern of his conversational partner.

 

It was time.

 

He could feel them approaching, and so it was in time with his heartbeat that he began to walk forward, stepping out into the frigid sunlight at the same time that the four Kings and Queens first moved toward him. Approach flanked on either side by a line of centaurs, their crossed blades creating a vaulted ceiling similar to that of a cathedral overhead, Kai continued to walk forward, step by step, until a quarter of the way along the path, the other four halfway along, he stopped, staring at them as they did at him. Edmund, he noticed with some amusement, looked the most astonished by far, his expression stunned as he regarded Kai’s naval uniform— clearly not expecting such a thing as the dedicated scholar of the court having joined the Royal Navy, of all things.

 

For the first time in over a millennia, the four Monarchs and Consul stood face to face, eye to eye as the rest of Narnia watched with bated breath as to how it would play out.

 

Then the four Kings and Queens stepped forward to their Consul, the Valiant taking his hand, and pulling him into line with them as he smiled, overjoyed, for his family had accepted him once more, regardless of what he might have done in their absence.

 

After all, it had been a point of some worry and contention for Kai Jin, that nobody could be sure what the four Kings and Queens would have thought of his becoming Consul. Now, though, Lucy had shown him that whatever he may have done, they considered him family— that they would not begrudge his ruling of Narnia in their absence for the country’s own sake.

 

He had not bowed to them, as he once had, in their reign: the unspoken symbol to show that now, in the current age, they were equal in rank as rulers of Narnia. 

 

As he should have known, the Pevensies— and by extension the rest of Narnia— did not care; indeed, seemed frankly overjoyed that all five were on equal footing.

 

~~

 

Edmund should not have doubted Kai Jin, should have known that nothing would keep the other from Narnia, no matter what happened to him back on Earth.

 

It was obvious, too, Edmund thought as he regarded the form of his friend, physically stronger than he remembered and dressed in the distinctive, albeit an outdated form, uniform of the Royal Navy— and wasn’t that something, knowing that the previously peace-loving and scholarly Kai had not only joined the naval forces, but clearly had also done a great amount of manual labour in the intervening years, if the breadth of his shoulders under the shirt had anything to say— that a lot had happened to the former Architect.

 

Then both parties stopped, the siblings pausing before moving forward again, his younger sister grasping Kai Jin’s hand to pull him into line with them as they all moved under the mountain into Aslan’s How.

 

The other hadn’t bowed, either, Edmund noticed, a smile rising to his face unbidden at the thought; clearly, following their departure through the Wardrobe, the former Architect had taken up the mantle of leader— and taken to it like a fish to water, if the carvings on the walls of the How were to be believed, for many of the images did in fact picture a slight man: first speaking with their own former Narnian advisors, then kneeling before the four thrones as he was crowned, then finally standing before the thrones, speaking to a crowd of Narnians.

 

Despite how much the other had changed, it was not hard to reconcile the different images of Kai with each other. After all, it was not too hard to believe that any employer would jump at the chance to employ the budding genius and hard work ethic that he had always embodied.

 

The Royal Navy, however, was known especially for the high standards it held its sailors to, and so it was obvious to Edmund that Kai Jin had grown greatly since the last time they had spoken. Once the quiet and stoic thirteen-year-old that had accompanied Susan and Lucy to the First Battle of Beruna, he now appeared the same age as Peter, with an easier laugh and kinder smile than ever before.

 

Something back on Earth had changed him for the better, Edmund thought— but knew truly that this time, there was no going back for Kai Jin from Narnia, for this was his home, and to leave it behind forever would break the young man’s heart forever in two.


End file.
